Good
by Sally Mn
Summary: Post-Manhunt, a few minutes between Vin and Buck.


_**Good...**_

Fuck it, that had _hurt_. Iffen there'd been a glue factory near enough, that fuckin' horse would've been... fuck it, glue.

Vin shifted, hissing in pain as he did. His ankle might not be broken - both of 'em thought it was just twisted - but he couldn't stand on it. The gash on his head was shallow but long, had bled a lot and was just as damned well painful. Plus his side where he'd landed on rocks damn well _burned_. He didn't feel like being - what the fuck was that word Ezra used? - stoic, that was it. Stoic. Well, for once he didn't feel like bein' fuckin' stoic.

What he felt like was shootin' someone.

The only someone in shootin' distance looked up from the fire he'd been tendin', eyebrows liftin'. "Y'okay there, Vin?"

No, he was _not_ okay, but all those years of being stoic - even if he'd never heard the damned word - proved too strong. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry 'bout -"

"Not your fault, Vin. That horse of yours..."

"Nothin' wrong with m'horse," Vin heard himself mumble - obviously years of defending his hell-an'-damnation-devil on four legs was also too strong to be overthrown by a piddlin' thing like a broken - okay, twisted and hurtin' like fuck - ankle, bleedin' head and bruises that Nathan was gonna give him hell over.

Glue still sounded good though.

He turned his head to glare at the beast; the beast flattened its ears and glared back. No fuckin' sense of how close it came to an ugly - and a sticky - end.

"Nah." From Buck's voice, he was laughin' inside at both of them, Vin an' the damned horse. "Nothin' at all that a bullet wouldn't cure."

"Now just a goddam minute -"

"Hey, hey -" Buck threw up a hand, half-mocking, half-placating. "Your horse, your rules, pard. God knows no one else wants 'im. Now take it easy." An arm was behind his back, helping him sit up, trying and failing to miss the bruises. He clamped down on the curses - tweren't Buck's fault, and the man had already had an earful of Texan filth from him.

Or several earfuls.

"Now, the best thing is f'ya to try and get some sleep - yeah, I know, not gonna be easy but if you wanta ride back in the mornin' -"

"Cain't hardly get home any other way, can I?" Stoic was takin' a real beatin' now, and he didn't care.

"Nope, but I could leave ya here with your bag o' bones an' head back for Nathan."

"I'll come after ya."

"Leave ya here _without_ your bag o' bones an' head back for Nathan."

"Ya wouldn't." He stared up at Buck's solemn face.

"I dunno, as a plan it's got what Ezra calls - _potential_ now." Buck cracked a grin. "But given that you'd likely try and walk - or hop - or damn well _crawl_ after me, the _potential_ might not be worth riskin' getting shot by Chris, or jawed t'death by Nathan. Nah, Vin, you're safe. At least from me, if not your horse."

He scowled. "That's not funny, Buck."

"Gotta disagree with you there, pard." Buck pushed his bedroll behind Vin's battered back to cushion the rocks. "Now... ya want dinner?"

"Beans?"

"Yeah."

"Nope."

"Oooohkay. Coffee?"

"Y'got whiskey?"

Buck grinned down at him. "Gotta feelin' Nathan would say we should keep it for yer outsides," with a wave of a hand just above - and just _too_ close for Vin's comfort - to the gash, "and not yer insides."

"Nathan ain't here." Never mind that Nathan preferred a fuzzily drunk patient to a surly and sober one any day. "Gimme the bottle."

"Here," Buck helped him to sit up, and handed it over. "Not too much, Tanner," watching Vin swig it down, "an' remember, _you_ get to tell Nathan and Chris it was all your idea."

Vin wiped a hand across his mouth, and smirked. "I'll tell 'em I knocked ya down and took the bottle by force, swear it on..."

"Josiah's Bible, mebbe?"

"D'ya know where he keeps it these days?"

"Not since Ezra tried to use it as, ahh, _collateral_, nope."

"On a stack o' Ez's playin' cards, then. Or JD's hat. Or some damn thing."

"Fair 'nough," Buck's voice softened. "Get some sleep now, will ya?"

He lay back, feelin' the extra warmth as Buck threw both their coats over him, watching as the bigger man headed back to tend the fire.

Odd that there was no trouble, no embarrassment, with Buck. Larabee was still simmering a bit over the business of Chanu - or maybe it was just over the Snead boys and their moonshine still blowin' up back of the laundry and wreckin' all his black duds in the bargain. Or just another battle royal with Ezra - or Miz Travis - or his horse - or the Devil in a black dream. Tanner wasn't stupid enough to ask questions.

He and Buck had said their bit without speakin', and then he'd suffered through Ezra's mass of tangled words that mighta had regret snarled somewhere inside. Not that it mattered.

They were none of them perfect, and as far as he was concerned, him and them, they were good.

So when someone had been needed to take papers to some forsaken little dirtpatch, just over two days' ride away, he'd been happy to get out of town and let the wind and sun and space clear out any lingerin' shadows.

But that was before his damned horse had thrown a shoe.

And stepped in a hole.

And kicked him when he'd tried to help.

That glue factory was sounding like a fuckin' good idea right now.

Buck looked back at him, frowning a little. "Stop thinkin', Vin. It's a bad habit t'get into, ya know."

"Yeah, look at Josiah."

"And Chris."

"And Ez... but his problem is he _don't_ think half the time."

"Ain't that the truth. But right now _you_ stop thinkin' and get some sleep. Gonna try and reach home tomorrer, and that means an early start. Don't wanna go too near Schwebergerville - Sheriff's a right greedy bastard an' may have taken too much interest in the paperwork he's sent."

Puzzled, Vin looked up at him.

"_Paper_work, Tanner," Buck repeated. "Ya can't take chances outside our _jurisdiction_."

"That's not another of Ez's -"

"Nope, the Judge's. Vin, I mean it. No chances, I've gotta answer to the rest of 'em."

Vin stared at him, struck by the sudden, unheard-of seriousness. Buck shrugged, and dug out a crumpled sheet of paper - and Vin knew what it was before he even touched it.

A wanted poster.

$500.

"How long y'known this?" He spoke casually.

"Ahh, since something like... that business with the James boy. Since before we even got us hired by the Judge."

"Y'never said -" Vin stopped with a hiss, and Buck was right there, fussin' with his damned leg again, giving him time to take it in.

"Mmm, this is right ugly, Vin." Giving him a breather to think, if more fuzzily than he'd meant to when this came up. As he'd known it would, sometime. "We need Nathan, an' _you_ need to keep it still till we can get you to him."

No chance o' that, of course. As Buck went to rise, Vin grabbed at his arm, not sure of why it mattered, but damned sure it did. "You never _said_ nothin, Buck."

"'Course not. Nuthin' to do with me, was it? Figgered it weren't true. Figgered you'd say what you needed to when you needed to."

He stared up into night-blue eyes, knowing that there was no trick, no fakery in them. It was one thing he'd always liked about the man, even when that thing led that trouble over the Moseley girl - he'd known where he stood, where Buck thought he stood. Might ha'been wrong, but if it had been jus' Ezra, hell, they neither of 'em woulda known where either of 'em stood, or even if they stood at all.

"How'd you _know_?"

Those eyes gleamed suddenly, wickedly. "Sure you wanna hear it?"

"O'course I wanna - fuck.." How he knew, he _didn't_ rightly know... but he knew all right. "Ezra?"

"Yup."

"_Ezra_?"

"Yup."

"An' _he_ never said nuthin' to me or Chris."

"Ez talks a hell of a lot, Vin," Buck shrugged. "Hell, we've all seen that, an' suffered through it. But what he doesn't do is, well, _talk_.

"And he ain't scared of Chris - not even as scared as he _should_ be, that's our Ez - but he ain't ready to talk to the man 'bout another man's past. Might lead to questions 'bout his own is what I think." That - and Buck's grin - brought an answering if shaky smile from the younger man. "He's got this habit of checkin' wanted posters wherever he is, Vin. Calls it self-preservation, given what he did f'r a livin'."

"Gamblin'? Or Cheatin'?"

"Both."

"He knew all along 'bout the five hundred."

"Yep." Buck was makin' quite a show - a bad one - hidin' a smile. "Interestin', huh?"

Vin could think of other words for it, an' some of them he'd learned from Standish in a flamin' temper. "So why'd he tell _you_?" He growled... and despite his smile, there was a thin thread of anger in the growl.

Buck stared down at him. "So's I could keep an eye on the posters - and JD - an' Miz Travis's well-meanin' meddlin' - till you're ready to say what you needed to."

Vin felt his throat close up a little, and stared down at the hated poster. "Would'na thought -" He hesitated, shying away from talking about that spot of ugliness over Chanu, but he figgered it had to be said.

God willin', only this once.

"Ya didn't exactly act all trustin' Buck, neither of ya. Why not say somethin' then?" He saw Buck's eyes darken, and shrugged. Somehow, he knew it didn't matter. And with that, he knew it - the damned poster, the damned bounty, the damned murder charge - none of it mattered to the other five. "It don't matter."

He could see Buck hesitate... fuck it. God willin', it didn't have to be said, Buck didn't wanna say it but he would if he had to, and Vin didn't wanna hear it.

"Vin -"

He grabbed the other man's arm again, and tried to put more force into his voice. "It don't matter, Bucklin. There's seven of us, an' we'll all get it wrong a'times. Might be Larabee's, Nathan's, my turn next."

Buck smiled, just a little, just as thankful not to have to talk through the whole danged sorry mess. "If ya say so, pard."

"I'm sayin' so. We could allus count it as... recompense, then. Fer..." He screwed up the poster. "Fer this."

He handed it to Buck, who grinned and tossed the paper on the fire. "Recompense? Hell, Vin - that the Judge talkin' again?"

"Nope."

"Ah hell... J'siah?"

"Nope."

Buck groaned. "Vin, we have _gotta_ stop listenin' to Standish 'fore he ruins us all."

Vin settled back against he bedroll. Yeah, they were good, but it was just as good to know they both _know_ they were good, kinda. Even if he had to put up with bein' thrown from his fuckin' horse to get to... _not_ talk with Buck. He settled back, wincing at the pain in his damned leg, the throb of his damned head and the damned fire in his damned side... dulled by the whiskey, sure but he still hankered after the glue idea.

Fuck it after all, it had _hurt_.

**-****the end-**


End file.
